End of the Second Week

By the end of the first week, we'd already found our groove in terms of how to get everything set up and making the four overlapping tours work every night. During the second week, we kept tweaking the individual aspects, of course, especially the pace and length of the different excerpts. And there have been lots of surprises every night, but overall the East Village Fragments has settled into a kind of routine, just as the West Village did last fall.

Ralph has been going around getting the more complicated pieces set up and ready, and working with Emma to arrange all of the hospitality and volunteers. Catherine mans the box office while I'm working with Susan to get the line directors and the first piece (Hair) prepped, then I take over the box office and we start the first tour.

Because the event is a little longer than we'd hoped, we have a gap in line director coverage of about 7-10 minutes between Jim Fritzler (LD1) and Helena Gleissner (LD2) which coincides with Leslie Strongwater's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts and The Maids. Once she had a sense of how long it took the tour to get to her, Leslie came up with the idea of texting me to find out what time each tour begins and then letting me know when the tour had moved past her. It's not perfect (I'm lousy at texting) but it works...

Some of the surprises:

1. It started raining Thursday night about 8:15, right before we began the 4th tour and we had to cancel the evening. Fortunately, the tours were all manageable enough in size that Catherine was able to reschedule most everyone for another night. I've heard of some great pictures, especially of A Corner of a Morning seeking shelter under their air mattress but haven't seen them yet.

2. Thursday was also the night of Make Music New York, an event that had musicians setting up all over the five boroughs to entertain passersby. We knew that there was going to be music at Astor Place, but imagine my surprise when the guys began setting up enormous speakers and mics and amplifiers right behind me. They didn't start until a few minutes before 8, and the bands that got to play were all very good, but I couldn't hear a damned thing over the walkie-talkie while they were playing. I think everyone could hear me, so I was able to do some cueing, but until the rain came, I was deaf for all practical purposes. The only tour it really affected was the 8pm tour, and we just asked Jacqueline Gregg, who plays our Ellen Stewart character, to perform her Prologue across the street in front of the Chase bank. I guess it worked, but since the rain scattered everyone, I never did find out for certain.

3. Friday night there was a murder on 4th Street between First and Second Avenues, not far from Hanna's Skirt. Catherine and Nick can address that better than I can....

4. Someone slapped Sasha Painter during The Foreigners on Friday night.

5. In the middle of Lullaby for a Dying Man on Saturday, an older guy in shorts and dark socks carrying a plastic shopping bag and some kind of cooler started to get right up into the scene. Frank Blocker, who plays the Victim, is belligerent and mocking to the Guard (played by Christopher Beier) and the scene gets really heated. I'm the line director for the last segment, and I was watching this guy getting closer and closer to the scene. Ryan Redebaugh plays the Priest (a very good actor in a thankless role, because the excerpt we chose has very little of this character) and I could tell that he saw the guy getting closer and that Ryan was ready for him. I started moving over to where I could help Ryan, when the guy pulled something out of his pocket and shows it to Ryan—I knew immediately that it was a badge! Ryan whispered something quickly to him and I saw the light go on for the undercover officer and he started backing away. I moved in and gave him one of the cards for the show and he said, "I knew something was going on but I couldn't figure it out", then heads off down the Bowery. Bear in mind, the audience was watching all of this happen, so as he left, they were all asking me, "Was that part of it?"

These are just some of the stories I know about... anyone else have any they'd like to share?
Barry